David OReilly

Video game Everything

What if you can become anything you want in the universe? Discover and play the thought-provoking video game “Everything”.

In “Everything,” you start as a simple organism or object, but as you play, you have the ability to transform into different entities, ranging from microscopic bacteria to vast galaxies. The game’s core mechanic allows you to become any object, plant, animal, or celestial body that you encounter, seamlessly travelling between outer and inner space.

The gameplay is centered around exploration and transformation. There are no traditional objectives or goals; instead, you are encouraged to explore the interconnectedness of all things. You can move through the game world, interact with other entities, and listen to narrated philosophical musings inspired by the ideas of British philosopher Alan Watts. The experience is both meditative and reflective, as you gradually piece together a deeper understanding of existence and the universe.

Elise Elsacker

Fungi Expo: Elise Elsacker

Discover the cutting-edge possibilities of sustainable architecture.
See a prototype mycelium block that was grown and shaped using a unique combination of biological growth and robotic wire-cutting. This process allows the mycelium to function as a multifunctional formwork with self-healing properties.

Joske Ruytinx -Plant-Microbe Interaction (VUB)

Meet a mycorrhizal fungus

Fungi support much of life on earth. In particular mycorrhizal fungi or root-friendly fungi are important and altered evolutionary history of the planet. Around 475 million years ago these fungi allowed plants to colonize land. Today, almost all land plants form symbiotic associations with mycorrhizal fungi and rely on them to survive. However, these fungi are mostly invisible and hidden in the underground. Curieucity presents an exhibition featuring mycorrhizal fungi in collaboration with the VUB Plant-Microbe Interactions research team and contributions of Amandine Kervyn. Did you ever meet a mycorrhizal fungus? Come explore their diversity, feel and watch their action in our mini forest!’

Christophe Albertijn

Le sol de la forêt est en partie visible et en partie caché sous la surface. Les champignons et le mycélium forment un réseau qui relie les deux. Avec nos oreilles, nous pouvons percevoir les divers sons de la forêt, mais la présence silencieuse des champignons nous permet d’imaginer un autre monde (sonore). Quel son produiraient-ils pour communiquer ?
En capturant soigneusement les sons les plus infimes et l’environnement plus large avec des microphones et des enregistrements, nous créons un terrain où nous pouvons laisser libre cours à notre imagination et rendre l’inaudible audible. Nous vous invitons samedi de 10h00 à 13h00 à un atelier dans le Parc Duden (point de rencontre @ Ten Weygaert) – Complet. Dimanche, vous pouvez venir écouter les résultats dans une installation audio / paysage sonore souterrain de la forêt. Plus d’information à suivre

Pour vous inscrire cliquez ici : https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest

Erik Etienne

Discover the house sparrow

The Wiels Marsh is an island of nature lost in the middle of an ocean of houses. On its shores lies our city. In the marsh, when the wind blows, the reed beds sing and when the clouds pass overhead, they like to look at themselves in the water. But really, what’s the point of a marsh in a city? Whether they’re sedentary like the sparrow, summering like the swift and the warbler, overwintering like the gull, or simply on a migratory stopover like the common sandpiper, the birds that frequent the marsh (100 species in all) all benefit from this place in one way or another. Let’s take a look at some of these relationships between birds and the Wiels Marsh.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest

Urban Species

SpecXcraft

You are cordially invited to the second Trans-Specific Assembly of Les BruXelles Libérées.
Already confirmed: A marsh; A singing reedbed; Chlorophyll and protozoa; Sparrows and fairies, winged and otherwise. The Wiels Marsh is a place where new alliances are forged between humans and many other species. In this sense, it holds the promise of a new way of thinking about our relationship with the city and with living things. In this workshop, the Urban Species* research-action collective invites you to open the specXcraft** project briefcase, and collectively imagine and build bits of Brussels of the future. Starting with the Wiels Marsh, the species that inhabit it, the practices of those who care for it, and the material generated during the festival, participants will be invited to give shape to the second Trans-Specific Assembly of Liberated BruXelles.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest

Biblif - Forest Library

Play Corner

In this playful area, we invite you to have fun, but also to use games as a pretext to reflect on our environment (in the broadest sense of the term). If you’d like to test your knowledge or learn something new, we’ve got a special “Nature questions” goose game for you, or “Enigmas? Our Earth”. If you’re feeling more like a creator, the “Planet” game is for you, asking you to cleverly position different elements to make your planet conducive to life.
In a game somewhat akin to Dixit, “Bioviva! Planète : Mers et Océans” invites you to express your emotions and exercise your deduction or memory. For the younger ones, we’ll be discovering fruits and vegetables with “Veggie Planet”, or helping animals on the ice floe with “Little Cooperation”. Games are available for ages 3 and up, and whether you’ve got 5 minutes or more, we’ve got a game for you.

Students from elementary schools

Focus on Chlorophyl – Exhibition

This exhibition is the fruit of work carried out during the ‘Focus on Chlorophyll’ workshop, conducted as part of the festival’s pre-project, with the participation of pupils from École des Sept Bonniers and École des Cèdres. They explored questions such as: Why are plants green? Where is chlorophyll found? How can pigments be extracted from plants? Through a variety of fun experiments, the pupils discovered the crucial role of plants in food webs and were introduced to the scientific approach.

The trophic webs created by the pupils in the Duden Park, the Wiels Marsh and the Bempt Park will be exhibited in photographic form at the Wiels Marsh.

To consult the pre-project, follow this link : https://curieucity.brussels/en/community/focus-on-chlorophyll-pre-project/

Antoine Bertin

Aquatic Conversations

Antoine Bertin explores the conversation of aquatic species through scuba diving, field recording and machine learning. His research draws on advanced machine listening techniques to try and decode the intricate ways of beluga whale communication.

Presented for the first time as part of CurieuCity, Antoine will propose an intimate and immersive radiophonic plea for marine conservation, immersing audiences in the fascinating world of listening to the ocean. Blending spoken word, artistic visualisation and immersive soundscapes, this experience draws listeners into the deep, often unheard dialogues of the sea.

“The microscope enabled humans to see anew, with both our eyes and our imaginations. Digital acoustics are an invention of similar significance. Like the microscope, they function like a scientific prosthetic: as they extend our sense of hearing, they expand our perceptual and conceptual horizons.” – Karen Bakker, Research Question

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest

Daniel Linehan & Michael Helland

Land Connection Practice

Daniel Linehan and Michael Helland guide outdoor embodied movement practices to help us to connect with our senses and our environment.
They create time for physical play and moments of active urban meditation, to re-connect to our bodies and to our surroundings inside the space of a park. A park is a human-cultivated place, but also a place that responds to a basic human need to connect with the more-than-human, with green grass and blue sky and the wild beings that fly above and burrow below.
We will stand, walk, listen, talk, and move together to inhabit a place in the here and now, with our full bodies and our open attention.

The Land Connection Practices are accessible for everybody: citizens, visitors, commuters, … dancers or non-dancers alike.

To register click here: https://www.billetweb.fr/curieucity-forest